Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protect the rights of digital content owners by, in general, restricting access to and/or use of their content. One network data security scheme is the DTCP/IP (Digital Transmission Content Protection over Internet Protocol) standard. According to DTCP/IP, digital content can be shared securely between devices in a home network but is not shared with third-parties outside the home network. Using an authentication scheme, devices in the home network can be designated as trusted destinations, but DTCP/IP will not allow the content to be transmitted over, for example, the Internet to be shared outside the home network. Therefore, according to DTCP/IP, a remote device (e.g., a mobile or nomadic device) cannot access content that is stored in the home network while the device is outside the home network (e.g., while roaming), even if the remote device legitimately should have access to the content. Also, because DTCP/IP does not function over wide area networks (WANS) or the Internet, a digital media adapter (DMA) or other home network device that only implements DTCP/IP cannot render content that is sourced from outside the home network.
There exist many DRM schemes other than DTCP/IP that can be used to protect content transported over a broadband network such as the Internet. Conceivably, support for each of the DRM schemes could be provided in each device in the home network. However, this can drive up the cost of such devices, perhaps unnecessarily so for consumers that do not have a need to support content distribution to remote devices.
DRM schemes that protect content using encryption have key management methods to securely provide a decryption key to an end-system that is authorized to receive the encrypted and authenticated (protected) content. Key management techniques are known in the art, but different DRM systems are distinguished by different key management and authorization systems, which make the decision whether or not to distribute the key to an end-system.
Accordingly, a device and/or method that can permit local content to be distributed to remote devices, but still protects the content against improper distribution, would be advantageous.